A REPLY TO THE BISHOP OF BANGOR's ANSWER TO THE REPRESENTATION OF THE COMMITTEE OF CONVOCATION. HUMBLY ADDRESSED TO HIS LORDSHIP. BY WILLIAM LAW, M. A. MR. LAW's THIRD LETTER TO THE BISHOP OF BANGOR. MY LORD, I BEG leave to trouble your lordship and the world once more with my remarks upon the doctrines you have lately delivered. Your Sermon and Preservative I have already confidered in the most impartial manner I could; and fhall now examine your answer to the reprefentation of the learned committee, both as it is an answer to that, and as it contains opinions contrary to the fundamental articles of christianity. I have lefs need of excufing to your lordship this third address, fince you can so easily acquit yourself from the trouble of making any reply to whatever comes from me. It feems I have too small a reputation to deserve your notice; but if the Dean of Chichester would but declare for the doctrines delivered in my letters, and put but a little of his reputation upon the iffue, then, you fay, you would submit to the employment of an answer *. My lord, I readily confefs that I have neither reputation nor learning, nor any title to recommend me to your lordship's notice; but I must own that I thought the very want of thefe would, in your opinion, qualify me to make better enquiries into religious truths, and raife your esteem of me as a correfpondent in these * Answer to Condit, of our Saviour vindicated, p. 112. matters. For you exprefsly declare, "That if learning or lite. rature is to be interested in this debate, then the most learned man has certainly a title to be the universal judge *. So that no man. ought to fhew any regard to learning as a qualification in religious. difputes, unless he will own that the most learned man has a title. to be a Pope, or, as you express it, the universal judge. Yet your lordship, in fpite of this Proteftant doctrine fo lately deli-. vered, has defpifed and overlooked all my opinions in religion, merely for my want of character and learning, and has promifed to undertake the needless task of examining thofe opinions with another gentleman, merely upon account of his character and reputation. So that though it is perfect popery, and making the most learned man the universal judge, to allow any thing to learning, yet your lordship is fo true a Protestant, and pays so great a regard to learning, that you will not fo much as examine. a doctrine with a perfon of no character for learning. Again you fay; "Nothing has been feen to adminifter fo many doubts and differences (in religion) as learning†;” and "that none are feen to be lefs fecure from error than learned; men." Now is it not strange, my lord, that after this noble declaration, against learning, as the greatest cause of doubts and differences, this extraordinary preference given to ignorance, as a more likely guide to truth, you should defpife any one as below your notice in religious difputes, because he wants that learning which fo blinds the understanding? Can you afcribe thus much honour to learning, which in your opinion does fo much dishonour to religion? Will you intereft thofe qualities in this debate, which if they are allowed to have any intereft in it, will make the man of the greatest abilities the universal judge? Again; as a farther reafon why you have taken no notice of me, you fay, "As confiderable a writer as Mr. Law is, I hope the committee, as a body, are much more confiderable in the Dean's eyes; I am fure they are in mine: and the Dean himself I have thought a much more confiderable writer than Mr. Law, and fo have spent all my time upon him and the committee." Now, my lord, though I readily acknowledge this to be exceeding true, and have so far at least a just opinion of myself, as to be afraid to be compared to much lefs perfons than the Dean, + Ibid. p. 98. * Answer to Repr. p. 99. or any of the learned committee, yet, my lord, this reason, which, if urged by any one elfe, might pass for a good one, cannot be urged by you, without contradicting a principal doctrine maintained in your Anfwer to the Reprefentation. For there you bid us look into the Popish countries, and fee whether one illiterate honest man be not as capable of judging for himself in religion, as all their learned men united; even fuppofing them met together in a general council, with all poffible marks of folemnity and grandeur*. Here we see a perfon merely for his want of literature made as good a judge in religion as a general council of the most learned men, acting with the utmost folemnity. We see a council' in its utmost perfection contemptuonfly compared to, and even made lefs confiderable than a private illiterate perfon. And this we may fairly fuppofe was intended to fhew your contempt of the English convocation. Eut a few weeks after, when you had another defign in your head, you tell us to this purpofe, that you difregarded the writings of a fingle perfon of no figure in the learned world, to pay your respect to the committee as a body, "which, as fuch, is much more confiderable in your eyes.' that here an illiterate perfon is made a great judge in religion in regard to a body of learned men, because he is illiterate; and here that fame perfon is made of no confideration in points of religion in regard to a body of learned men, merely because he is private and illiterate. It will be of no advantage to your lordship to fay that you have only replied to the Dean, in relation to me, in the fame words that he used to you in relation to Mr. Sykes. For, my lord, that reply might be proper enough from the Dean, if he judged right of Mr. Sykes's performance; it being very reasonable to overlook an adverfary that has neither truth, abilities, or reputation to fupport his cause. But though this might be right in the Dean, who pays a true regard to the authority and learning of great men, yet it cannot be defended by your lordship. For though my learning or reputation were ever fo low, they are fo far from unqualifying me for religious enquiries, that if you would fincerely stand to what you have faid, you ought, for the want of these very accomplishments, to esteem me the more, and even chufe me out as a correfpondent in this debate. *Answer to Repr. p. 98. But however, without any farther regard to the opinion your lordship has either of me or my abilities, I fhall proceed to the most impartial examination of your book that I poffibly can. Of the Nature of the Church. To begin with your lordship's defcription of a church; «The number of men, whether fmall or great, whether dispersed or united, who truly and fincerely are subjects to Christ alone in matters of falvation *. The learned committee calls this your lordship's description of a church. Your lordship answers: "I wonder to hear this called my defcription of a church; whereas I pretend in those words to describe no other, but the universal invisible church. It is a description not of a church, in our modern' way of speaking, but of the church, the invifible church of Chrift t." May not we also wonder, my lord, that you should so describe the church, that it will not bear being called a church? If I should say it is a defcription of no church, I have your lordship's confeffion, that it is not a church; fo that it is fomething betwixt a church and no church, that is, it is the church. Suppofe, my lord, fomebody or other should have a mind to be of your church, if he betakes himself to a church, he is wrong; you do not mean a church, but the church. Your lordship owns that this is not a defcription of a church in the modern way of speaking; I humbly prefume to call upon your lordship to shew that it is a description according to the ancient way of speaking. To call the number of believers the invifible church, is a way of fpeaking no more to be found in the Scriptures, than the company of præadamites. There is no doubt of it an invifible church, i. e. a number of beings that are in covenant with God, who are not to be seen by human eyes; and we may be faid to be members of this invifible church, as we are intitled to the fame hopes and expectations. + Anfwer to Repr. p. 70. * Serm. p. 17, B B VOL. I, |